Marcu, 1906.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 77 
three-inch pot, we use a more porous mixture, viz., peat in lumps, sphagnum 
moss, and oak-leaves, with a good sprinkling ot sand, one-fourth of the bulk 
being leaves. For the final potting before flowering—if we can so calculate 
it—the moss and leaves are very considerably reduced, thus giving the 
compost a more lasting nature, and the pots are chosen large enough to 
accommodate the plant for two years. 
Where raising has been successfully carried on, there will be plants of 
all sizes which will soon want re-potting, and it should be known that a 
small plant feels the effects of being repotted much less than the large 
ones, and a beginning should be made with these. : 
The month of March is of great importance to the hybridist, as it 
marks the beginning of his seed-sowing season. There is som. 
difference of opinion among growers as to the advisability of keeping seed 
which has ripened during the previous autumn and winter until spring, but 
I myself am perfectly satisfied that it is best to keep it until March, and 
then start tentatively, as a better season is yet to follow. If the seed is 
sown, say, as late as September, it may germinate, but will make very little 
progress during the winter, and will more than likely be of delicate growth 
when spring comes, and the spring-sown seed will rapidly catch up to it, 
being stronger and freer in growth. _ If seed is sown actually in winter, the 
embryo will swell up and become green, and so remain, for no leaf point 
will come through the spermoderm. It is very unlikely, also, that seed 
kept thus suspended will germinate in spring, although I know perfectly 
well that there are plenty of cases on record where it has happened—even 
after two years. I prefer getting mine up in two months—although I don’t 
always do it, alas! I know a man who got a Brassavola Digbyana hybrid 
in sheath in ten months—but I did not see the plant! 
PREPARATION OF SEED.—How to keep the seed ina sound condition all 
the winter is not a matter of much difficulty, if common E i 
are taken. When the capsule splits and commences to shed the seed, it 
should be cut from the plant, taking all the green flower stem possible. 
The capsule should then be placed in a pan on a piece of tissue paper, and 
hung up in the sun in a perfectly dry house. Let it remain here until the 
capsule becomes thoroughly dry and wizened, when the seed will all fall 
out of the dry husks by tapping. The seed should then be folded neatly in 
the square of tissue paper and slipped into a seed envelope, which must 
be carefully labelled and placed in a drawer where a dry temperature of 
40°-50° is maintained. The main point is to get the seed thoroughly ripe 
and dry before storing away. It is a great mistake to tie up the pod and 
leave it on the plant long after the seed begins to drop, as the life germ 
cannot fail to be irritated by the moist growing condition of its environ- 
ments. Seed which ripens in the spring and summer should receive the 
